These 23 Flags Represent Different LGBTQ+ Identities—And The Latest One Includes Intersex Identities

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The brightly colored flags you see online and IRL to celebrate Pride and support LGBTQ+ rights are great to look at, but they serve an important purpose. While everyone is probably familiar with the rainbow gay pride flag, there are many groups within the vast LGBTQ+ community that are less well-known, and many have their own flag. 

“Having a wide range of flags helps those groups feel more seen and offers them a simple visual way to identify themselves to others if or when they want to,” Jo Eckler, licensed clinical psychologist and author of I Can't Fix You—Because You're Not Broken: The Eight Keys to Freeing Yourself From Painful Thoughts and Feelings, tells Health. 

Eckler explains that the different flags can help people find others who share their sexual or gender identity. Additionally, the flags can serve as an important teaching tool. “People sometimes see these flags, wonder what they mean, go and look them up, and end up learning something in the process,” says Eckler. 

RELATED: 6 Major Health Disparities Affecting the LGBTQ+ Community

The bigger picture is that a flag is more than just a flag. LGBTQ+ identity and sexuality intersects with all aspects of health (mental, physical and sexual).  Far too often, LGBTQ+ people don’t get the same level of care as people who identify as heterosexual. A 2017 survey by the Center for American Progress found that nearly one in 10 LGBTQ+ individuals reported that a health care professional wouldn’t see them in the prior year because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation. And nearly three in 10 transgender people reported that providers refused to see them because of their gender identity. 

“Research has found that the less comfortable people are with their LGBTQ+ identities, the more likely they are to be depressed or more anxious, use or abuse substances, or to have low self-esteem,” Kevin L. Nadal, PhD, professor of psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center at City University of New York and author of the upcoming book Queering Law and Order: LGBTQ Communities and the Criminal Justice System, tells Health. 

According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report published in August 2016, LGB youth seriously contemplate suicide at almost three times the rate of heterosexual youth and are almost five times as likely to have attempted suicide compared to heterosexual youth. “People who are uncomfortable with their LGBTQ+ identities are likely to have an array of physical health problems, and sometimes may even suffer from sexual health issues,” says Nadal. “This is why it’s so important to celebrate LGBTQ+ people from a very early age.” 

If you identify as heterosexual and want to ally with the LGBTQ+ community (and there’s even a flag for you, but more on that later), get to know these flags. It’s not an exhaustive list, BTW—but it’s a good starting point. 

RELATED: What Is Pansexual? Here's How It's Different From Being Bisexual

Original rainbow pride flag

pride-flags pride-flags states that Baker’s design was inspired by Judy Garland’s “Over the Rainbow.” 

Traditional rainbow pride flag

pride-flags pride-flags added two extra stripes of black and brown to the flag to include people of color, who are often excluded from the LGBTQ+ community. Screenwriter Lena Waithe showed her support for the new flag by wearing it as a cape to the Met Gala. 

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Bisexual pride flag

pride-flags pride-flags , the top 40% of the flag is magenta, the middle 20% is lavender, and the bottom 40% is royal blue. The magenta represents same-sex attraction, the blue represents heterosexual attraction, and the lavender, which is a mixture of both the magenta and blue, represents attraction to both sexes.

Lesbian labrys pride flag 

pride-flags pride-flags chose and voted for this as a possible new lesbian flag. Generally, it’s been well-received by the lesbian community because it include lesbians who are butch, futch, or otherwise gender nonconforming. 

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Pansexual pride flag

pride-flags pride-flags pride flag, which first appeared online in 2010. The flag consists of three stripes to symbolize pansexuality as either an attraction regardless of gender or an attraction to all genders. The blue stripe represents an attraction to men, the pink stripe represents an attraction to women, and the yellow stripe represents an attraction to people of other genders. 

Intersex pride flag

pride-flags pride-flags states of the flag design. “We are still fighting for bodily autonomy and genital integrity, and this symbolises the right to be who and how we want to be.” 

Asexual pride flag

pride-flags pride-flags . According to the Asexuality Archive, the flag was created by a member of the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) as part of a contest in 2010. The black stripe stands for asexuality, the gray stripe for gray-asexuality or demisexuality, the white for allies and the purple for the asexual community as a whole. 

RELATED: 5 Things You Need to Know About Being Asexual

Transgender pride flag

pride-flags pride-flags , the white stripe represents “those who are intersex, transitioning, or consider themselves having a neutral or undefined gender." 

Genderqueer pride flag

pride-flags pride-flags pride flag, featuring a lavender, white, and chartreuse stripe, was designed in 2011 by genderqueer writer and advocate Marilyn Roxie. Roxie chose the lavender to represent androgyny as well as queer identities because it’s a mixture of pink and blue—colors that are traditionally associated with men and women. The white stripe, as per the transgender pride flag, stands for agender or gender neutral identities. And the chartreuse stripe, the inverse of lavender, represent third gender identities and identities that don’t fall within the gender binary. 

Genderfluid pride flag

pride-flags pride-flags pride flag in 2012 because they were disappointed with the lack of symbolic representation for genderfluidity. The flag has five horizontal stripes, which are widely considered to represent femininity (pink); masculinity (blue); both femininity and masculinity (purple); a lack of gender (black); and all genders (white). However, in a 2018 interview, Poole said, “I just played around with the shades to what I found aesthetically pleasing. The purple in particular. I loved the shade.” 

RELATED: What Does It Mean to Be Gender Fluid? Here's What Experts Say

Agender pride flag

pride-flags pride-flags page. His reboot is meant to be inclusive of queer people of color and trans people, and represent those lost to AIDS. 

Intersex-inclusive “Progress” pride flag

intersex-progress-pride intersex-progress-pride , this version of the "progress" pride flag was revealed by Intersex Equality Rights UK (IERUK) in late May 2021, featuring an additional yellow chevron with a purple circle to represent intersex individuals. "Please know that our intention for this flag is create intersex inclusion because we need to see it," IERUK wrote in the Instagram caption sharing the flag.

Polysexual pride flag

pride-flags pride-flags by the Tumblr user Samlin, who said they “made it similar to the bi and pan flags since they’re all in under the multisexual umbrella.” The pink stripe is said to represent attraction to women, the blue attraction to men, and the green attraction to people who don’t conform to male or female gender.

RELATED: Gender Dysphoria Symptoms: Here's How to Know if You Have It

Straight ally pride flag

pride-flags pride-flags at the University of Colorado, the origin of the demisexual pride flag is unknown, but the term “demisexual” (used to describe someone who feels sexual attraction to another person only after forming a close emotional bond with them) was coined in 2006 on the forums of The Asexual Visibility & Education Network (AVEN) by user “sonofzeal.” On the flag, black represents asexuality, grey represents asexuality and demisexuality, white represents sexuality, and purple represents community. 

Aromantic pride flag

aromantic aromantic people may or may not be interested in sex but never or rarely experience romantic attraction. The wide aromantic spectrum inspired the colors of the flag, which was created by Tumblr user Cameron (@cameronwhimsy) from Australia in 2014, per The Gender & Sexuality Resource Center at the University of Colorado. Dark green represents aromanticism, light green is for the aromantic spectrum, white stands for “aesthetic” attraction (i.e. objectively finding someone beautiful without being sexually or romantically interested in them), gray is for gray-aromantic and demiromantic people, and black symbolizes the sexuality spectrum. 

RELATED: What's the Difference Between Asexual and Aromantic? We Called in the Experts

Demigender pride flag

pride-flags pride-flags , the dark gray and light gray stripes stand for partial (binary) genders, the yellow stripe represents nonbinary genders, and the white stripe stands for those who identify as agender or third gender. Two variations of the demigender flag are the demigirl and demiboy flag, which replace the yellow stripes with pink and blue stripes, respectively. 

Androgynous pride flag

androgynous-flag androgynous-flag .  

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